1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to adaptive traffic management, and more specifically to an adaptive link traffic manager.
2. Related Art
Traditionally, the majority of consumer demand in the area of mobile backhaul networking has been directed to voice services. However, recently the market for mobile backhaul services has begun to change. In particular, the mobile backhaul space is experiencing a growing demand for increased capacity as well as a shift from voice services to data services. These factors are driving mobile backhaul networks towards high capacity IP/Ethernet connections.
Similarly, mobile backhaul networking is experiencing a transition to 4G and LTE networks. This transition is also driving the need for higher capacity, and packet traffic in mobile backhaul networks.
However, there is an inherent problem associated with the wireless connections that make up these mobile backhaul networks. Specifically, in wireless connections, unlike wired connections, such as fiber optic cable, or copper cable, to provide some examples, link capacity may change for various reasons including, for example, environmental conditions. Therefore, as mobile backhaul networks continue to transition to 4G and LTE networks, and as systems rely more and more on these wireless links, it is increasingly becoming a problem to cope with these changing link conditions. Thus, there is a need for a traffic management device that can adapt by altering settings as necessary according to wireless link conditions.
The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number